Use of identification badges and cards is ubiquitous in modern society. From providing access to restricted areas to identifying one or more privileges of the respective card holder, the usage scenarios and implementations are nearly endless.
However, given the scope of use of these identification badges and cards (collectively, “ID cards”), ease of use has rarely been a concern. Most ID cards are rectangular cards with one or more identification elements where the identification elements are designed to verify the card holder and provide access to some defined set of privileges. Commonly, identification elements include photographs of the card holder, identification information (e.g., name, address, height, weight, gender, eye color, hair color, ethnicity), one or more readable elements or some combination thereof. The readable elements of the ID card are frequently magnetic strips or other machine readable component that, when engaged with a reader component, functions to identify the user to a related system (e.g., a computer attached to the reader component).
In practice, most individuals store their ID cards in a wallet, card holder or other container that is used to secure the ID card while the ID card is not needed. When the ID card is needed, the individual will retrieve the ID card from the container and swipe or otherwise provide the ID card to the reader component or individual reviewing the ID card. This requires the user to spend time accessing the container and retrieving the ID card therefrom.
Some ID cards have built in means for allowing a wearable attachment to be connected to the ID card. These ID cards are convenient in that a user may wear the ID card without requiring a container or other means for carrying the ID card. However, not all ID cards have built in means for allowing a wearable attachment to be connected. Further, many ID cards currently utilized contain sophisticated electronic components (e.g., magnetic strips, computer chips, near field communication (NFC) components) that may be damaged if an individual attempted to add their own wearable attachment means to the ID card. Not to mention that may organizations would consider tampered ID cards as invalid or otherwise compromised.
Unfortunately, this means that ID card holders that are required to carry ID cards without wearable attachment means built-in are forced to utilize containers that require the user retrieve the card from the container each time the ID card holder is required to present or swipe their ID card.
Therefore, there is need in the art for an ID card holder that allows for the identification card to be retained in a manner that allows the ID card to be read without requiring the ID card to be removed from the ID card holder. These and other features and advantages of the present invention will be explained and will become obvious to one skilled in the art through the summary of the invention that follows.